Often, as this blog illustrates, the versos or backs of photographs can provide a wealth of additional information about the subject captured on camera.

That was the case recently with a series of cartes-de-visites that emerged during research on the celebrated portrait photographer HS Mendelssohn (1847-1908).

Downey Luminaries I

A Jewish refugee, his early years in Newcastle on Tyne involved photographing well-connected clients for the firm of W. & D. Downey.

That apprenticeship was followed by a brief partnership operating as ‘Downey & Mendelssohn’ before setting up a studio in his own name at 17 Oxford Street in the heart of the city.

The design of cartes-de-visites, both front and back, can assist researchers in dating a photographer’s work and informed my earlier blogpost.

But one of the cards from his studio produced an unexpected twist.

It featured a young boy wearing a smart suit staring intently at the camera.

Turning the card over, handwritten details on the verso revealed that his young life had been cut short.

Using these brief details, a newspaper search produced a notice published in the Newcastle Journal identifying who the young boy was.

Fast approaching his 12th birthday, Gibson Blenkinsop Youll lived with his father, a Newcastle solicitor, his mother, two younger sisters,  and two domestic servants in the house where he died.

The cause of his premature death was not given, however child mortality in industrial cities such as Newcastle in Victorian times was far higher than today.

Looking at Gibson’s portrait photograph, I reflected on the long-term impact such a tragedy must have had on his family and how they fared subsequently.

The answer was a testament to human resilience.

Gibson’s father, John Gibson Youll, continued with his legal career in Newcastle, working as a partner in the firm of Chartres and Youll.

Politically ambitious, he first served as a Town Councillor, then Alderman, Sheriff and Deputy Mayor, before being appointed Clerk of the Peace in 1890.

In this prestigious role, he oversaw Newcastle’s courts and trade organisations for 25 years.

Mr. Youll’s celebrity was reflected in his appearance in a newspaper feature devoted to ‘Familiar Figures in Newcastle’ illustrated by a fine double-column line drawing.

As to the Youll family, they moved following Gibson’s death to the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond.

Three more sons, Harold, Chartres and Geoffrey, were born and all later joined the legal profession.

Harold and Chartres worked as solicitors in the family firm whilst Geoffrey was a barrister.

Like their late elder brother, Ethel and Maude Youll were also photographed as children by HS Mendelssohn in his Newcastle studio.

At this point in the 1870s, he was establishing a reputation, and both portraits demonstrate his ability to capture the girls’ personalities and characters.

The use of a sofa arm for Ethel to lean on and a pile of cushions on which Maude sits reflect the techniques needed to engage a young child having their photograph taken.

The Youll family’s patronage also indicated their trust in HS Mendelssohn’s skills as a portraitist.

As the two Youll girls became young women, their status in Newcastle society attracted the attention of the press.

In September 1892, Miss Ethel Youll married Mr. Mortimer Ash with younger sister Maude as one of her bridesmaids.

Under the headline ‘Fashionable Wedding at Jesmond,’ the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle described how “the bride wore a white satin gown trimmed with lace and orange blossom and Limerick lace veil.”

Of particular note was that the bridegroom was from another Newcastle – that in New South Wales, Australia.

Public records reveal that Mort and Ethel Ash later lived in London and had three sons before her death in Surrey in 1935 at the age of 67.

Meanwhile, Maude lived with her brothers at the family home in Newcastle until the deaths of their parents.

First, their mother Frances passed away in 1909 followed six years later by their father.

John Gibson Youll’s passing, aged 78, was widely reported in the national press and marked by fulsome obituaries in the Newcastle papers.

One described how “he was for many years identified with the public life of the city, and was held in high esteem.”

His photograph, reproduced as a half-tone by the Newcastle Daily Journal, was credited to ‘Bacon’ whose photographic studio and later camera shop in the city thrived well into the 20th century.

One report of Mr. Youll’s funeral listed dozens and dozens of mourners by name, though in the midst of the First World War, Mort and Ethel’s son Beresford “was unable to attend the funeral because of his military duties.”

Following their father’s death, Maude and Harold Youll as the eldest surviving children were appointed executors of his will.

As a prosperous and successful solicitor, J. Gibson Youll’s estate was valued at nearly £15,000 (more than £1.9 million today).

Like her elder sister, Maude Youll too got married, later settling in the West Country where she died in 1955 at the age of 85.

The loss of Gibson, the Youll’s eldest child, was one that must have stayed with members of his family throughout their lives.

Years after his death, the young boy still featured in public records such as the 1911 Census, which his father completed and signed.

Asked to record the number of children born during the Youll’s marriage, he recored the figure ‘1’ in the extreme right-hand column for ‘Children who have Died.’

Had it not been for HS Mendelssohn’s surviving carte-de-visite, this chapter in one family’s visual history might have been lost completely.

Instead, the details captured on its verso poignantly record Gibson Blenkinsop Youll’s death 150 years ago, his features immortalised in a fine portrait photograph.

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